Well, after reading The Naked Cash Cow, and then discovering Frank Kern’s great videos, I am totally wondering why I haven’t really given much serious thought to building quality mailing lists.
I’ve been subscribed to Aweber, which is an awesome autoresponder service, for 4-5 months now I think, and while I do have a couple of experimental lists, I really have not given this service the attention it deserves.
So, now that I am all excited about mailing lists, I thought maybe I should get you excited too with these 5 reasons why you should be building a mailing list!
1. Can Contact Visitors Multiple Times
When someone visits your website, chances are you want them to do something. For example, if you are affiliate marketing, you want them to click through your affiliate links and buy your affiliated products. But really, most visitors, especially ones who are first time visitors from search engines, are not coming to your site to spend money.
Unless you somehow impress them enough that they bookmark your site, or take your advice right away (low chances in most cases), they will leave and you will never see them again.
If you are able to capture their email address however, that visitor that may have never come back is now just a short message away. You can now contact them multiple times, as opposed to getting only one shot at marketing to them.
2. Develop Trust And Relationships
This is an extremely important factor, especially when you are affiliate marketing. Say someone arrives on your website, and you provide a recommendation. Sure, there is a chance that this person may take it, but more realistically, he may not trust you enough to take your word for it.
Now imagine if a person was on your email list, and you send him really interesting and useful information on a semi regular basis. Now when you send him an email recommending a product, there is a much higher chance that he will take your advice and buy. This is because you have provided genuine help and value to him, and that makes you not only a friend, but an authority.
3. Building Links and Connections to Sell
I know this header doesn’t make all that much sense on it’s own, but let me explain. One of the most popular ways to build a list is to offer a free report or incentive for people to sign up to your mailing list. Now after a couple of days, you could ask if they have read your report, and explain how there are specific products and services that will facilitate whatever they are trying to do.
You could also do the same thing with content you present to them. For example, one day you could explain how having your own website is so important or whatever, and the next day you could recommend a good hosting company like HostGator.
The point is that you can easily provide great content, and your recommendations will become natural and genuinely helpful. Build that great relationship with your list.
4. You Can Sell Multiple Things To Multiple People, Multiple Times!
Even if you sell something to someone in your list, that’s not the end of the road for that lead. He doesn’t just disappear! In fact, the chances that that person will buy from you again are even higher than other leads!
Every lead could potentially represent numerous marketing opportunities, so long as you keep providing them with enough value that they feel being a part of your list is valuable to them.
5. Leverage Joint Ventures With A List
Joint Ventures can be extremely profitable, and mailing lists present some of the best opportunities. This is because you can promote any sort of JV, whether it be a cross list promotion, affiliate promotion, anything really, with just a click of a mouse.
Unless you have an extremely high trafficked site, there is no other way to promote as quickly and effectively as with a mailing list, and that is what JV partners generally look for.
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The bottom line is that by capturing visitors’ email addresses, you are able to communicate with them again and again whenever you want, and market to them way better than you could with a single visit.
I would personally recommend using AWeber as your autoresponder of choice. Check them out by taking their free “test drive” by signing up on the bottom of their front page!
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Great post mailing lists in my opinion are where the money is these days.
I give away free ebooks to build my list and so for have over 1500 subscribers.
Mailing lists are a great concept for bloggers to capture readers, especially for people that do not use RSS readers. I am just now learning about affiliate marketing concepts, however, so I haven’t yet given this a try.
BTW, I like your blog! My website is about frugal living, so I have to be careful about marketing products. Still, I recently posted an Ebates referral on my site for entertainment books and made $500! As long as bargains benefit my readers, I am looking forward to learning more about affiliate marketing.
Congrats on your huge affiliate sale!
You’re absolutely right that email subscriptions are still used by many. In fact, I think about 1/5th of my subscribers are through email.
Kacie and Jay,
It’s funny you both really connected blogging RSS and mailing lists as sort of the same thing, but I think they have a few key differences.
With blogs, all the information is laid out already, right before your eyes. People probably won’t feel the need to signup, since they can find what they want, and just leave.
That’s why a mailing list on it’s own is really awesome. It can take as little as setting up a good squeeze page with a nice incentive, and you could get literally 50%+ visitors to signup to your list.
Try getting those kinds of numbers with blogs
Also, with a blog, only your RSS subscribers are “guaranteed” to see any offers you want to present, while on a mailing list everyone can be contacted with just the click of a mouse.
It’s a complex topic, mixing blogs and mailing lists, that’s for sure… I’ve been working on this comment for like half an hour haha.
But, bottom line is that on it’s own, a mailing list is an extremely powerful marketing tool.
P.S. If you want to simple up your RSS readers, offer an incentive for them to subscribe. That will close the gap between blog and mailing list even further
Hye,
Thanx for giving good tips on affiliate marketing. Does it work for sending article links to friends?
Waiting for your reply….
Regards,
debudeodhar
Love the post! I too have been experimenting with Aweber over the last few months. You really need to develop a relationship, but it’s always hard to do. There are always a few people in your inbox who you trust for good information, but you can’t copy them either!
Such a dilema. Hope we work it out! Keep up the good work.
-Bec
Hi—Tim:
I keep hearing that “mailing lists” are the holy grail of affiliate marketing, so it must be true.
I am really mixing up my blog monetization methods, and affiliate marketing has proven to be a tough animal for me. I think mainly this is because early on i signed up with a gazillion networks, and now im drowning in offers and options.
It’s hard for me to find an affiliate offer that really matches my niche. Im mostly referring to my main blog (Groovy Vegetarian) This is the same reason, I like Adsense so much, because it does the legwork for me, and does it so well.
I plan on incorporating a mailing list for upcoming veg layouts, which are quite popular in my blog. I need to look into this further. But yes, i plan on doing it and it makes perfect sense to add to a blog. (mailing lists)
Missy.
Definitely a good idea
I think most people, including myself, may underestimate the value of a good list. Even when big name marketers are yelling at us to use them 
Thanks for the good points. I’ll be passing this along.
Excellent article, I wonder why more people don’t use mailing lists sometimes, they are highly beneficial. I think another great way to influence people through mailing lists is to offer them an incentive to visit your site (coupon, or even some free item) this will create joy in the customer and maybe even get them to spread the word to their friends and colleagues. Very informative post, I enjoyed it.